


Chapter Five: State of the Nation

by CavalierConvoy



Series: MTMTE Series One: Shoot Straight with a Crooked Gun [6]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers Generation Two, Transformers: Beast Machines, Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: Computers, Gen, Investigations, Other, Sabotage, Surveillance, Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 07:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3241931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavalierConvoy/pseuds/CavalierConvoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Artemis's investigation leads her to tap Blaster and their number one suspect, the black hat and saboteur Cavalier, to aid to recover data from the destroyed cameras in Shuttle Bay Eleven. What they learn is compounding the mystery even further.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chapter Five: State of the Nation

Life begins when you're ready to face it  
I've changed my mind because I'm stuck on  
The state of the nation  
["State of the Nation" ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joVTQOEbVe8)by Fad Gadget, from _Fireside Favourites_

 _Lost Light_  
Now

Perceptor's lab was, in contrast to Brainstorm's, the definition of order. Artemis stood in the centre of the room, hands on her hips, overcome by the urge not to touch anything lest she sully some important experiment.

"MARB fuel cells?" Perceptor cupped his chin and stared at a point at his feet; Brainstorm was right, it was a cute gesture.

"Normally, I would be quick to counter my ... contemporary ... in his observation of their uses as a weapon or a power source for one, but his conclusion does have merit; the cells, even ten of them, are far too low-yield for anything other than perhaps a low-yield stun grenade. I would agree with the speculation that they were stolen by someone looking to cause mischief, not one who intends to do harm."

"Like a flash-bang? So maybe a distraction?" Artemis speculated.

"Possibly. I would check on those known to show anarchistic tendencies; you have checked, of course, with Cavalier?"

"Oh, she does have a reputation. Yes, we did. But other than flash-bangs or noise makers, what could the fuel cells be used for outside the MARBs?"

"Alone? Propulsion, mostly. The concept behind the Mobile Aubobot Repair Bays are to provide transport without the fear of explosion if hit by enemy fire, which is why they are low-yield. Unless someone is attempting to construct a hover board — perhaps add thrill-seekers to your list of those to investigate?"

"Mischief-making thrill-seekers with anarchistic tendencies? That describes our captain and our black-hat hacker to the glyph."

Perceptor smiled, a wry grin. "They are both from Nyon, after all."

"And he hasn't been responding to my pings, but neither has Drift, which could mean any number of things, likely the two of them are together. Drift tends to keep Rod out of trouble — usually. But flash-bangs — hmph."

"Inspired, Artemis?"

"I've got concussion mortars. Why would I bother with cumbersome flash-bangs made out of fuel cells?"

"And the closed-circuit security did not pick anything up?"

Artemis grimaced. "Yeah, apparently one of our last weapons testing knocked out the cameras in that shuttle bay."

"And the fuel cells were taken from the one place where there was no real-time security surveillance. What are the chances that this is coincidence?"

Snapping her fingers, Artemis grinned. "Someone who knew the CCTV was out! Which limits those who knew about the blackout, because I just found out myself."

"Other than the officers, who would have access to the security measures?"

"Oh, Primus, it keeps going back to Cav."

Perceptor arched a brow. "Why would she have access — never mind, I am reminded what she considers as entertaining."

"Well, even if she didn't do it, I can strong-arm her into helping my find out who did. At least now I have an idea of what to look for. Thanks, Perce."

"May I be so bold as to make a request?" Perceptor coughed. "May I examine your hammer?"

Now she went on the defencive. "I just got it."

"I know you did; I just want to ascertain its safety protocols."

Artemis laughed. "Supposedly kinetically driven, I was assured." She disengaged it from the magnetic hilt at her back and handed it to the scientist.

"I'm certain that it was well-intended, but given the track record of your visits to the medibay to reattach digits and — in regards to the last weapons test — your arm, I would like to be assured that we have one of our squad leaders in top-notch shape."

"A simple, 'stop testing Brainstorm's experiments' would be sufficient."

"The probability of you taking that advice to spark is slim to nil. At least you have the common sense to stay away from the less conventional concepts."

"I mean, what good is an ennui gun? It does nothing — literally!"

"In the chance of winning a war without casualties, there are uses to these concepts," Perceptor shrugged. "I cannot deny the brilliance behind the design."

Artemis gave him a bemused smirk.

"Of course, I ask you to keep that between you and I, as we both know how he would take the critique."

"Likely as a proposition," Artemis muttered. Perceptor's head snapped up, optics wide. She held out her hands in apology. "I swear, I won't tell him."

*

"'Oi, 'Cutter," she hailed, leaving Perceptor's lab. "Who, other than Blaster, Magnus, and Red would know about a CCTV outage?"

_"Probably Rod and Drift, too. Although I'm surprised Red didn't fix it immediately."_

"Same here. Perceptor brought up that the cells could be made into flash-bangs."

_"Flash-bangs? Huh. Seems redundant when we already have a stockpile of factory built ones."_

"Well, that's an easy one: someone doesn't want to steal or requisition stock that could be traced."

_"I'm going to check with Swerve; if anyone's heard anything, he would. Probably should check with Cav again; non-lethal noise-makers tend to be her speciality. How about Magnus?"_

"Still out on recon, probably trying to strangle the 'Cons with bureaucratic red tape, otherwise I'd have ask him his opinion on the matter. Then again, I'd end up a suspect. Oh, check with Waverider, too; just remembered he's got some expertise for explosive devices."

_"Will do. Keep me posted."_

"Right back atcha." Switching gears, Artemis called up Cavalier. "Hey, Brat, what's your twenty?"

_"Depends; am I in trouble?"_

"You are if you're not cooperating."

_"Like I told 'Cutter, I honestly have no frikkin' clue what happened."_

"Actually, I need your help."

 _"Oh. Well."_ Cavalier cleared her throat. _"I'm in the auditorium. I was supposed to meet Skids and Whirl here, but they're doing something with Rewind now. Probably Minibot tossing. Which now that I think about it was probably the reason why they invited me."_

"Want to meet me on the bridge? We've got some busted CCTV equipment, and I need to know if you can pull anything from the damaged tracks."

_"Do I detect a challenge?"_

"Are you up to it?"

_"Well, that's a stupid question, boss lady."_

"Good girl," Artemis smirked, returning to the bridge lift. Taking her datapad, she typed out a quick message to Magnus — a simple _"Who on board would use flash-bangs?"_ — and left it at that. She could picture the optic twitch when he saw the note.

She met Cavalier just outside the bridge; the white and black Autobot was hopping from one foot to another. 

"Why so nervous?" Artemis questioned the smaller Cybertronian; Cavalier brought her feet together and clasped her hands behind her back, looking up at her former commander.

"Nervous? This is excitement! Total black ops, covert agent style! So what're we looking for?"

"CCTV in Shuttle Bay Eleven's been out for a decacycle; I need to see if they captured anything — audio, some visual, anything — earlier this sol."

The white and black Minibot cocked her head. "Wasn't that when we were testing the EMP rounds?"

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Artemis sighed. "I am not at liberty to confirm nor deny that."

"And by 'we,' I mean 'you and the guys'."

"Cav—"

"We were just spectators — "

"Cavalier — "

"Head's up, Blaster, hacker and saboteur extraordinaire on the bridge!" Cavalier's attention span — or lack for there of — was legendary on board the ship. "Super secret mission! Even got clearance!" She pulled out a badge, flashing it en route to a console. "No time to talk! Work now!"

"Does Brainstorm know you swiped his clearance card?" Artemis arched a brow, taking a stand next to the communications head.

"Most likely," Cavalier retorted, bringing up a panel of monitors. "Anyone check the hallway cameras, too? There's got to be something there as — okay, what was the radius was the EMP blast?"

Artemis grinned at her roommate's enthusiasm. "Localised, best I could tell. They didn't affect us. Well, the conventional aspect, yes, but that's besides the point."

"Not enough of a charge to affect sophisticated structures," Blaster suggested. "What were they, EMPs with explosive charges? Knocked out the simple systems?"

"Naw, because Whirl was still standing," Cavalier rifled back. "There was some spikes in the EM field — looks like shrapnel took out two of the cameras. Anyone ever investigate them?"

"I'd imagine Red," Artemis stated. "And if he doesn't get paranoid, then you know it's easily explainable."

"Okay, so two cameras were taken out by shrapnel, the remaining three — oh, hello. Two were taken out by an EMP charge, but the fifth one, back corner...." Cavalier typed out a string of commands. "Blaster, can I use the main screen? This may be important."

"You looking for background clues in _Doctor Who_ is in your definition of 'important'," Blaster chortled, punching in a code to grant access to her board. "Go for it."

"Okay, so back corner got a good swatch of us during that testing — " Cavalier brought up the CCTV footage; Artemis grimaced at the obvious pass of the flask between her and Trailcutter. It looked...bad...on camera. Her gaze flicked to the door; that would have been the worst time for Magnus to walk through. Her luck held, and no one entered.

When Brainstorm called ready, she switched her head space to study the experiment: three of them — her, Skids, and Whirl — lined up at the test bench, aiming the generic rifles used in the test. Trailcutter was behind them, standing between the line up and the spectators. Nothing unusual thus far.

The ratatat proceeded a series of loud pops — explosions, going off too early. Trailcutter dropped into defender mode to protect the four Minibots — Cav included — from the explosions; Brainstorm dived behind the makeshift bleachers in the process. And there was much swearing, mostly from Artemis and Whirl.

"Well, watching it from that angle was pretty bleeding impressive," Cavalier muttered.

"Especially loved that little dance step Brainstorm pulled," Blaster chuckled.

"We call that the 'I'm too brilliant to die!' dance," Artemis snarked. "Thus why my arm was blown off." The sledge hammer was looking more like Brainstorm's way of apology than a gift.

"Okay, at least we've ascertained — whoa!" Cavalier reacted to the glitching feed on the main screen. "Maybe it was affected. Let's see here...okay, looks like...there!" She was able to get the picture under control. "So what we have here was a skipping disc — likely a hard drive malfunction. Wait, wait, wait...what the hell?"

"Cav, we can't speak geek as fluently as you," Blaster reminded.

"Or answer to internal monologuing," Artemis added.

"Well, let's see if I can explain for the viewers at home," Cavalier tapped at her faceplate. "Well, the hard drive's skipping, which is strange, as it's a solid state drive. Not unheard of, just strange. So from there, we've got a sort of skipping that has a pattern. It's losing fractions of clicks."

"What do you mean, losing clicks?" Artemis questioned.

"It's not keeping time?" Blaster asked.

"Exactly. But it's precise. Like, the time stamps at first are nearly unnoticeable — like, to the hundredths of a click. Then it's twice that: point-zero-five. Then twice that: point-zero-two-five. Then roughly a tenth — technically, point-zero-one-two-five. Grossly estimating, of course, just for explanation purposes. Continuing down until we start getting into the whole clicks. That's when we notice it. And now, we're at megacycles without footage from that particular camera."

"So the fact that it was considered still working was because it was checked on soon after the incident." Artemis bowed her head.

Cavalier nodded. "And likely it wasn't even inspected physically. Just check the feed, and looks good."

"But whoever regularly checked the feeds would have realised the drive was losing that sort of time," Blaster pointed out.

"There's only one person who checks those religiously," Artemis stated. "Red."

"And he's not the type to let something like that go ignored," Blaster observed.

"No," Artemis agreed. "He's not."

The Minibot looked back and forth between her supervisor and her former commander. "Wait, you think Red knew about this and didn't do anything to fix it? That...doesn't seem like him."

"No," Artemis drew out the syllable. "It doesn't."

Cavalier's jaw moved up and down; she was chewing on her ruined lip underneath her faceplate. "Do you want me to continue looking into the footage?"

Artemis shook her head. "I think I'm going to talk to Red about this first."

 _That is,_ she added silently, _if he would answer his pings._

Next Chapter: Control, I'm Here


End file.
